1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to wire harnesses and, in detail, to a wire harness having a part of a wire or a bundle of wires provided with an exterior component covering this wire or bundle of wires and the exterior component.
2. Description of the Related Art
Inside a vehicle such as an automobile, wire harnesses for electrically connecting electric devices, electronics, and others to each other are routed. A general wire harness includes a certain number and a certain type of wires. And, these wires are gathered, and the gathered wires form a main line or a branch line of the wire harness. At an end of a wire or a bundle of wires of the wire harness (that is, an end of the main line or the branch line), a certain type of connector is mounted.
Furthermore, at a certain part of the wire or the bundle of wires of the wire harness, a certain exterior component may be provided. For example, in order to prevent the bundle of wires from coming apart, a resin tape may be coiled around the bundle of wires or a corrugated tube may be mounted. Also, in order to protect the wire or the bundle of wires, a protector may be mounted. Furthermore, in order to keep the wire or the bundle of wires in a certain shape (for example, a shape of a path for routing), a shape keeping member may be provided.
As such, an exterior component having a certain function, such as a resin tape, a corrugated tube, a protector, or a shape keeping member may be provided to the wire or the bundle of wires of the wire harness. However, the wire harness as described above has the following problems.
First, if the number of exterior components to be provided to the wire or the bundle of wires of the wire harness and the number of types of such exterior components are large, it takes trouble to manage these exterior components and the materials of the exterior components. Also, details of operations for mounting these exterior components on the wire or the bundle of wires of the wire harness may vary depending on the type or structure. For this reason, the type of process for manufacturing the wire harness is increased, thereby possibly inviting an increase in manufacturing cost.
Moreover, if the structure is such that an injection-molded product is mounted on the wire or the bundle of wires of the wire harness, since a molding tool for manufacturing an injection-molded product is generally expensive, an increase in manufacturing cost may be invited. Furthermore, in the structure in which a resin tape is coiled around the wire or the bundle of wires of the wire harness, it takes a long time for operation.
Meanwhile, an example of a structure in which a member other than an injection-molded product and a resin tape is mounted on a wire or a bundle of wires of a wire harness is disclosed in JP 2003-197038 A. The structure described in JP 2003-197038 is schematically described as follows. First, a flat circuit body is interposed between two coating members made of a thermoplastic material, and these are pressurized by a mold as being heated. With this two coating members are brought into close contact with the flat circuit body and two coating members are welded to each other. According to this structure, two coating members made of the thermoplastic material serve as a protector that protects the flat circuit body.
However, in the structure described in JP 2003-197038, it is difficult to solve the problems described above. That is, while the structure described in JP 2003-197038 can be applied to a protector for a flat circuit body, it cannot be applied to other bundles of wires (for example, a bundle of wires with its section being formed in an approximately circular shape). As such, the applicable structure of the bundle of wires is restricted, and therefore a non-applicable wire or a bundle of wires requires a conventional protector. Also, since a non-woven fabric is easily-deformable material, in the structure described in JP 2003-197038, it is difficult to keep the flat circuit body in a certain shape. That is, it is difficult to apply the structure described in JP 2003-197038 to a shape keeping member. For this reason, in order to keep the shape of the wire or the bundle of wires in a certain shape, a separate shape keeping member is required. As such, in the structure described in JP 2003-197038, it is difficult to decrease the number of types of members to be mounted on the wire or the bundle of wires. Therefore, it is difficult to reduce trouble of managing these members, prevent or suppress an increase in product price, reduce the number of process in the manufacturing process and simplify details of operation, and reduce manufacturing time.